Class and Nation: How do We Champion the Cause of the Working Class?

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This one-day conference, 'Class and Nation: How do We Champion the Cause of the Working Class?', brings together academics and policymakers with the aims of exploring the relationship between class, nation and tradition in the context of working class politics at the beginning of 21st Century - in the UK and beyond.

Event details

Class and Nation: How do We Champion the Cause of the Working Class?

The aftermath of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump after riding a class-based populist wave in the US suggests that one of the most telling mistakes made by established parties in last 30 years was their neglect not only of the idea of class but also of what might be termed its living realities.

In recent years, in an era of so-called ‘de-traditionalisation’, working class traditions have been summarily dismissed by many academics as reactionary, xenophobic and mired in the forms of ‘false consciousness’ associated with ideological manipulation through the mass media. As such, ‘class’ has been relegated to a minor concern within a broadly liberalising agenda with questions of gender and sexuality at the forefront. ‘Class’, it seemed, was a vestigial, perhaps even a nostalgic, concept associated with a moribund industrialism that has since moved elsewhere.

However, recent political events have rendered this assumption questionable and, as a consequence, the academic debate is returning to the question of class, with all of its ambiguous hopes and worrying brutalities.

This one-day conference brings together academics and policymakers with the aims of exploring the relationship between class, nation, and tradition in the context of working class politics at the beginning of 21st Century - in the UK and beyond.

In particular, it will explore the strengths and limitations of ‘tradition’ as a mobilising political force alongside a discussion of the progressive potential of nationality and nationalism. It will also consider the way that established parties on the left can and should engage with existing class traditions in order to achieve their wider strategic political objectives.

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